


Through the sands of time, I reach for your hand

by Lasoona



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Immortal!Byleth, It's a weird mashup of VW and SS I did, Major character death is cuz half of this is about Edelgard's death, Petra and Seteth are just briefly mentioned but they're there, Reincarnation, The Beagles refused to turn on Edelgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24787525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasoona/pseuds/Lasoona
Summary: The time has come. Enbarr has fallen. All that is left is to defeat Emperor Edelgard, the woman that had nearly been Byleth's whole world back at Garreg Mach. But is this truly the end?
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 13
Kudos: 119





	Through the sands of time, I reach for your hand

**Author's Note:**

> It is my duty as a fanfic writer to make my faves suffer sometimes, so here you go.

Petra and Dorothea had defended the Emperor with their lives. The former successfully holding off Shamir, Hilda, and Leonie, until Leonie's spear pierced her thigh and she fell to her knee. She met the ground soon after, one of Ignatz’s arrows piercing her neck. Byleth's ears still echoed with the furious cry that tore itself from Dorothea's throat as she blasted Church’s forces with an inferno that left most of the battlefield scorched black, obliterating their front lines. The armored knights in front who survived thanks to their shields were soon fried to a crisp by Thoron bolts, Dorothea ignoring Edelgard's pleas to stop. Until she collapsed. The consequence of overcasting lightning magic showing itself in her blackened fingertips, lightning carved into her skin up her arms. Unable to stomach the death of one of the two remaining Black Eagles Byleth took advantage of the lull in battle caused by Dorothea’s ferocious magical display to rush to her side and stabilize her as she went into magical shock. A battered Manuela and Mercedes took Dorothea from her, quickly exiting the throne room. Byleth had been forced to order the rest of her forces to retreat soon after, Seteth having to be held back despite his wounds. 

And soon she was alone. Just her, and the Emperor. Edelgard.  _ El _ .

“I'm sorry, By- my teacher.”

The sorrow behind the words and the pain behind those amethyst eyes twisted at Byleth's gut. Did it really have to end like this? She didn’t see how she could avoid it. Edelgard wasn’t the type of person to surrender as long as there was even a slight chance she could prevail.

Byleth blinked and suddenly Edelgard was in the air. Byleth hurriedly pulled the Sword of the Creator up into a block, Amyr carving a path towards her head. The force of the blow dropped Byleth to one knee. The pressure on her blade lifted only for Byleth to be launched back by Edelgard’s armored boot. She used the momentum to roll over her shoulder and stumble to her feet just in time to jump out of the way of another strike.

The pain was still there. In her eyes. Even as they tried to cut each other down. Yet Edelgard would not hold back, and so Byleth could not either. Not unless she wanted to lose this fight.

Both women channeled their power into the relics they wielded, the weapons igniting with an orange light. A yell tore its way from Byleth's throat as she swung, the Sword of the Creator met by the flat of Amyr's blade. Unlike before, the power behind the awakened relics met each other with an ear shattering clash, the massive stained glass window beside the combatants shattering from the shockwave, showering them with glass.

Byleth grunted as the clash sent vicious vibrations up her arm, "Edelgard, please," she pleaded, "Surrender."

Edelgard simply gritted her teeth, misty eyes ignored as she pushed on.

With a cry she shoved Byleth's sword away, bringing Amyr's hilt around and bashing the former mercenary across the face.

The women weaved around the bodies littering the floor of the Adrestian throne room. One misstep and either one of them could go tumbling to the ground, a mistake that could easily prove fatal. Byleth parried another swing at her shoulder, stepping past the weapon before either sword or axe could be brought to bear, reaching one hand through and grabbing the collar of Edelgard’s cape. With a tug, she yanked the Emperor closer and slammed her forehead into the smaller woman’s nose.

Byleth heard a sickening crunch before her breath came out in a sharp wheeze as a gauntleted hand pulled her down and a knee hit just under her ribs, forcing her to release the Emperor as both women stumbled backwards. Edelgard grimaced, holding her nose. The blood dripping through staining the brighter red of her armor.

Byleth quickly attempted to take advantage of the newfound space between her and her opponent, unlinking her sword blade and lashing out with its whip form. The tip sliced along the ground before swinging up towards the red-clad woman, sending blackened bits of metal flying as carved through the remnants of imperial and church soldiers alike. The Emperor stepped to the side, the tip of the blade grazing a pale cheek. Byleth brought the whip back around, sending it hurtling horizontally towards the woman Edelgard ran forwards, ducking under the attack, hand touching the ground as she dropped low. Byleth swung up, intending to bring the blades down on the woman, when Edelgard pulled her hand back from the ground and threw. Byleth’s eyes widened as she felt metal pierce her left shoulder, one of Petra’s throwing knives now embedded in her flesh.

With a pained grunt she reconnected her sword’s blade and charged the approaching Emperor. Byleth swung, hoping to cripple Edelgard’s main arm. Desperate to throw Byleth off balance, Edelgard attempted a tactic she’d seen Petra pull off many a time, dropping to the ground and using her momentum to slide along the ground on her shins as she threw her head back, sliding right under Byleth’s swing. A mistake. The movement disoriented her as the blood loss from her broken nose dizzied her for a split second. Not long, but enough. Byleth brought the Sword of the Creator down and up in a back-handed arc, carving a deep gash across Edelgard’s back up to her right shoulder just as she hooked Byleth’s legs with Amyr’s blade. Despite the intense pain, she pulled on Amyr with all her strength, yelling as she pulled the axe around. She was rewarded with a thump as Byleth fell to the ground. She hissed in pain as her back spasmed, causing her to drop Amyr. Her left hand shot out for it, only for a familiar knife to bury itself in her palm.

Her right hand reached for Amyr once more, despite the pain, until the Sword of the Creator slid over her shoulder and paused a hair's breadth from her neck.

The Emperor froze in place, “You should have cut off my knee instead,” the Professor commented. The sword trembled against Edelgard’s neck, “Anyone else would have taken advantage of an undefended leg, why didn’t you?”

“I-” The words caught in her throat, “Just finish it. You’ve beaten me.”

“El…”

Edelgard gave her former professor a humorless chuckle, “To think, the last time I would hear someone call me that would be from you.”

The relic sword clattered to the ground, Byleth slowly moving around to Edelgard’s front. The Emperor’s heart clenched as the minty green hair came into view. She had come to associate the color with all her failures over the years. Her failure to stop Rhea. To finish the war. But most of all, the distance that now separated her and Byleth. A distance she now believed she could never have hoped to cross, despite how close they had been.

“El, please.”

Edelgard had difficulty focusing on the mint eyes in front of her. Despite everything, they still shone with kindness, concern, hope. All things she was used to seeing from Byleth. But that was before she’d started a war. She shook her head, “No, my teacher. Even now, across this land, people are killing each other. You have the power to end it now. You must. You path lies across my grave. It is time you find the courage to walk it… Byleth.”

Byleth stood, shaky hands claiming the Sword of the Creator once more. Even here, amidst a field of bodies, Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg held her head high, kneeling as proudly as her injuries allowed.

A shaky breath rumbled in her throat as Byleth held her sword high. Mint eyes forwards. The professor knew if she let herself look Edelgard in the eyes, she would not have the strength. This wasn’t fair. There had to have been a way to change things without the need for her death. But even her powers over time did not allow her to change this. A swift death was the best she could do for the Emperor now, at the end of it all. Edelgard would never allow herself to be put in chains again.

Byleth gritted her teeth as tears broke free, streaming down her cheeks to land on the scorched stone. The raw emotion nearly overwhelmed her. Her chest ached, her heart felt split open, her hands shook.

“I wanted…”

She had to do it before she lost all her resolve.

“...To walk with yo-”

Without a sound, the Sword of the Creator came down. And thus, the War of Unification would come to a close. Byleth stumbled back, forcing herself to look at what she’d done. And like something had broken, she collapsed, sobbing.

It was there that her friends found her, an hour later. The Ashen Demon. Weeping amidst the ashes of her dreams.

* * *

“There you are.”

Byleth turned, spotting the familiar face approaching her lonesome spot in the corner of the Grand Varley Museum. The dust over the benches and the lone portrait a testament to the frequency that this part of the art exhibit was visited. Byleth had been in the middle of cleaning it off.

“Dorothea,” the woman smiled, “What brings you here?”

The woman scoffed and rolled her eyes, the many wrinkles on her aged face deepening as she frowned at her old friend, “Don’t play dumb, if someone doesn’t check up on you back here you’ll forget to eat, drink, probably sleep too.”

Byleth let the smile fall, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to burden you like this, it’s just…”

“If you don't maintain the painting, no one else will?”

Byleth nodded, her gaze moving back up to the painting hanging on the wall before the two women. A grand red throne, inlaid with gold. Upon it sat Edelgard von Hresvelg, captured just how she preferred people to see her. Cold, imposing, the rock upon which the waves of her enemies would break. But the two women standing before her knew what had laid beneath. The kind-hearted woman that checked in on her friends after every battle. Caspar had liked to call her a protective mother hen, and though she hated it, it wasn’t far from the truth with how she fretted over the Black Eagles. The late nights Byleth had spent up talking with the girl. The secrets they shared. The night before the Holy Tomb, when Byleth had fallen asleep on her shoulder as they gazed out at the stars and she’d sworn she’d felt lips on her brow just as she was losing consciousness.

No one else knew Edelgard as she had truly been. No one currently alive cared to. Not anymore.

“I still wonder, sometimes,” Byleth sighed.

Dorothea looked to her friend curiously, “If things could have been different?”

Byleth nodded, “Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder if I could have changed things. If I’d only realized things sooner. Seen things I learned too late earlier. I know what if’s are something I should avoid, but when I’m here, looking at her? I can’t keep them out of my mind.”

Dorothea gently laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder, “I can relate some. I don’t have crazy time powers like you do, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering, you know?” The retired songstress smiled up at the only remnant of her old friend, “The best I could do was give her her own Opera.”

“It was a wonderful Opera,” Byleth chuckled, “Historians still think you're talking out of your ass though.”

“Ugh,” Dorothea waved off the comment, “Those old geezers can get fucked. Fifty years and they still don’t like that my firsthand knowledge contradicts the Evil Villainess they all want to keep her painted as,” the retired songstress lifted her blackened fingers, electrical patterns still snaking their way up to her biceps after all these years, “If I could still use magic like i used to, I’d have half a mind to fry them to a crisp before I go.”

Byleth quickly took one of the woman’s hands in her own, “Please don’t say that.”

“What?”

“Th-the… the talk about dying,” Byleth hung her head, “...Not you, too… I’ve already lost the rest of my classmates long ago, I just-” Byleth shook her head mournfully, “I just don’t want to lose you, too.”

Dorothea sighed, wrapping her old friend in a tight hug, “I’m sorry, By. I don’t understand why exactly you don’t age, I can’t imagine how you feel,” Dorothea pulled away with a smile, “But even we’re all gone, we’ll still be here,” She placed a hand over the former Archbishop’s heart.

“You all say that, but that doesn’t exactly comfort me,” Byleth muttered.

Dorothea chuckled, “Unfortunately we can’t do much more. But it’s true! We’ll all still be with you. Even Edie will stay in your heart forever.”

* * *

It had been four centuries since the last of the Heroes of Unification had been claimed by death. Dorothea had been right in that they would always be with her. It had also caused her to fall into a deep depression, drowning in her nostalgia after Claude had died, leaving her alone in the world besides Seteth and Flayn. Though the two never understood why she insisted on keeping Edelgard’s remaining portrait in peak condition, which lead to the woman not interacting as much as maybe she should have. Either way, they all tended to stay out of the public eye. Byleth less so, reappearing every so often to aid humanity in some way or another. If she remembered right, last time she was in Enbarr City, people tended to call her a “cryptid” and it was something of a game among the youth to try and find her by exploring the woods and caves near major cities. As near as nature could get to a major city nowadays, anyways. Though from what she understood, the general populace had no real idea what she looked like anymore. They all thought they were looking for a wizened old woman, not the thirty-something looking woman strolling past them on the sidewalk.

For the last couple years, she’d been working as the Lead Director for Varley Museum. She snuck in often enough to make sure Edelgard’s display was taken care of, she figured she might as well try to get a job there for a couple decades. It was because of her new job that there was now a much larger exhibit detailing the life of one Edelgard von Hresvelg. Byleth would gladly lead tours of the area herself, though her responsibilities severely limited how often she could do such a thing.

It was at the end of one of these tours that a young woman approached her and asked if she could stay longer. While the answer was, of course, yes, it was the woman’s appearance that weighed down her tongue like lead.

The woman standing in front of her had long chestnut brown hair that fell to the middle of her back, the top half tied back to keep it from her face. With a purple ribbon that matched her amethyst eyes. Her deeper voice lending the woman a more serious air, but a hit of gentleness underneath. The resemblance was uncanny. And unnerving, to the immortal.

“Ma’am?”

Byleth started, “I’m sorry, yes, go ahead. The tours aren’t the only way to visit this room or anything.”

Byleth watched as the woman strode back over to the old Adrestian Dragon Horn Crown. She gazed at it… almost fondly. Byleth smiled to herself. If only El could see this now. She would not let her sacrifice be forgotten if it was the last thing she did. The Emperor gave everything hoping to secure a better future. Despite losing the war, Byleth did everything she could to learn politics to guide things towards the future of equality for all people that the woman she loved, yes, four centuries later she could finally admit it, had strived towards. She would take her work to the grave. And then she could finally show the one person she was working for.

Or so she thought.

“Well now,” The all too familiar voice tore Byleth out of her reverie. Back in the museum room, she found the strange woman giving her a fond smile, “You were certainly difficult to find, my teacher.”


End file.
